In Norse mythology, Barnstokkr (Old Norse, literally "child-trunk"[1]) is a tree that stands in the center of King Völsung's hall. Barnstokkr is attested in chapters 2 and 3 of the Völsunga saga, written in the 13th century from earlier tradition, partially based on events from the 5th century and the 6th century, where, during a banquet, a one-eyed stranger appears and thrusts a sword into the tree which only Sigmund is able to pull free. Scholarly theories have been put forth about the implications of Barnstokkr and its relation to other trees in Germanic paganism.

Barnstokkr is introduced in chapter 2 of Völsunga saga where King Völsung is described as having "had an excellent palace built in this fashion: a huge tree stood with its trunk in the hall and its branches, with fair blossoms, stretched out through the roof. They called the tree Barnstokk[r]".[2]

In chapter 3, King Völsung is holding a marriage feast for his daughter Signy and King Siggeir at King Völsung's hall. At the hall, large fires are kindled in long hearths running the length of the hall, while in the middle of the hall stands the great tree Barnstokkr. That evening, while those attending the feast are sitting by the flaming hearths, they are visited by a one-eyed, very tall man whom they do not recognize. The stranger is wearing a hooded, mottled cape, linen breeches tied around his legs, and is barefooted. Sword in hand, the man walks towards Barnstokkr and his hood hangs low over his head, gray with age. The man brandishes the sword and thrusts it into the trunk of the tree, and the blade sinks to its hilt. Words of welcome fail the crowd.[3]

The tall stranger says that he who draws the sword from the trunk shall receive it as a gift, and he who is able to pull free the sword shall never carry a better sword than it. The old man leaves the hall, and nobody knows who he was, or where he went. Everyone stands, trying their hand at pulling free the sword from the trunk of Barnstokkr. The noblest attempt to pull free the sword first followed by those ranked after them. Sigmund, son of King Völsung, takes his turn, and—as if the sword had lay loose for him—he draws it from the trunk. The saga then continues.[3]

[edit] Theories

Hilda Ellis Davidson draws links to the sword placed in Barnstokkr to marriage oaths performed with a sword in pre-Christian Germanic societies, noting a potential connection between the carrying of the sword by a young man before the bride at a wedding as a phallic symbol, indicating an association with fertility. Davidson cites records of wedding ceremonies and games in rural districts in Sweden involving trees or "stocks" as late as the 17th century, and cites a custom in Norway "surviving into recent times" for "the bridegroom to plunge his sword into the roof beam, to test the 'luck' of the marriage by the depth of the scar he made".[4]

Davidson points out a potential connection between the descriptor apaldr (Old Norse "apple tree") and the birth of King Völsung, which is described earlier in the Völsunga saga as having occurred after Völsung's father Rerir sits atop a burial mound and prays for a son, after which the goddess Frigg has an apple sent to Rerir. Rerir shares the apple with his wife, resulting in his wife's long pregnancy. Davidson states that this mound is presumably the family burial mound, and proposes a link between the tree, fruit, mound, and the birth of a child.[5]

Davidson opines that Siggeir's anger at his inability to gain the sword that Odin has plunged into Barnstokkr at first sight appears excessive, and states that there may be an underlying reason for Siggeir's passionate desire for the sword. Davidson notes that the gift of the sword was made at a wedding feast, and states that Barnstokkr likely represents the 'guardian tree', "such as those that used to stand beside many a house in Sweden and Denmark, and which was associated with the 'luck' of the family", and that the 'guardian tree' also had a connection with the birth of children. Davidson cites Jan de Vries in that the name barnstokkr "used in this story was the name given to the trunk of such a tree because it used to be invoked and even clasped by the women of the family at the time of childbirth."[6]

Providing examples of historical structures built around trees, or with 'guardian trees' around or in the structure in Germanic areas, Davidson states that the "'luck' of a family must largely depend on the successful bearing and rearing of sons, and there is a general belief that when a guardian tree is destroyed, the family will die out." In connection with this, Davidson theorizes that at the bridal feast, it should have been Siggeir, the bridegroom, who drew the sword from the tree, "and that its possession would symbolize the 'luck' which would come to him with his bride, and the successful continuation of his own line in the sons to be born of the marriage". The sword having been refused to him, Davidson theorizes that this may well have been intended as a deadly insult, and that this lends a tragic air to the scene in the hall.[7]

Jesse Byock (1990) states that the name Barnstokkr may not conceivably be the original name of the tree, and instead that it is possible that it may have originally been bran(d)stokkr, the first part of the compound potentially having been brandr, (meaning brand or firebrand), a word sometimes synonymous with "hearth", and pointing to a potential connection to the fire burning within the hall. Byock notes that the tree is called an eik (Old Norse "oak"), which has an unclear meaning as the Icelanders often employed the word as a general word for "tree", and the tree is also referred to as apaldr, which is also a general term used to refer to trees. Byock theorizes that the latter reference to an apple tree may imply a further symbolic meaning pointing to the apple tree of the goddess Iðunn, and that the Barnstokkr may be further identified with the world tree Yggdrasil.[1]

Andy Orchard (1997) states that the role and placement of Barnstokkr as a "mighty tree, supporting and sprouting through the roof of Völsung's hall" has clear parallels in Norse mythology with the world tree Yggdrasil, particularly in relation to Yggdrasil's position to the hall of Valhalla. Orchard further points out parallels between Sigurd's ability to solely remove the sword from the trunk and King Arthur's drawing of the sword Excalibur.[8][edit] Modern influence

In Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen opera cycle, the tree appears as Barnstock, when the hero Siegmund, with a great tug, pulls from it a sword that he names Nothung.[9] Barnstokkr has been theorized as English author and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien's immediate source for a scene in his 1954 work The Lord of the Rings depicting the fictional character of Frodo Baggins and his acceptance of the weapon Sting after it has been thrust "deep into a wooden beam".[10] Some of the structures described in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings have been described as "recalling" the position and placement of Barnstokkr in Völsunga saga, which Tolkien was well familiar with.[11][edit] See also Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Barnstokkr

* Glasir, the golden tree that stands before Valhalla. * Læraðr, a tree that sits atop Valhalla, grazed upon by a goat and a hart. * Sacred tree at Uppsala, an ever green tree before the Temple of Uppsala.

The Donar Oak (also Thor's Oak) was a legendary oak tree sacred to the Germanic tribe of the Chatti, ancestors of the Hessians, and an important sacred site of the pagan Germanic peoples.

While many oak trees have been referred to as "Donar Oaks", the most meaningful of them is the oak chopped down by Saint Boniface in the early eighth century. According to the saint's hagiography the tree stood at a location near the village of Geismar (today part of the town of Fritzlar) in northern Hesse, and was the main point of veneration of the Germanic deity known among the West Germanic Chatti tribes and most other Germanic tribes as 'Donar (High German: Donner = thunder), by the Old English (Anglo-Saxons) as Thunor and by northern Germanics as Thor. It was deliberately chopped down in 723 and symbolizes the beginning of the Christianization of the non-Frankish tribes of northern Germany.Contents[hide]

The oak tree in Germany has a long and sacred history, which has endured into modern times. The oak was already associated with Zeus in the classical period, and was particularly strong among Germanic peoples.[1]

In Germany, the oak tree stood for traditional values such as truth, longevity, and loyalty, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it came to symbolize Germany itself; Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock hailed it as a national symbol, and he associated it with Arminius in his Hermanns Schlacht. Ein Bardiet für die Schaubühne (1769), a historic epic celebrating the first-century military leader who became an emblem of German unity.[2]

[edit] Boniface and the Donar Oak

In 723, the Anglo-Saxon missionary Saint Boniface, Apostle of the Germans, arrived in the area in his quest to convert the northern Germanic tribes to Christianity, using as his base the Frankish fortified settlement of Büraburg on the opposite side of the Eder river. He had just been in contact with Charles Martel, who had confirmed Frankish commitment to the mission in Thuringia and Hesse. With the military support of the Frankish empire (there was a base in Büraburg-Fritzlar), Boniface, in what was probably a well-planned and advertised action, had the oak felled to convey the superiority of the Christian God over Donar and the native Germanic religion.[3] The account in the first hagiography of Boniface, by Willibald, relates that the huge oak was felled by a great gust of wind, "as if by miracle" with Boniface only making one swing of the axe. When Donar did not respond by hurling a lightning bolt at him, the assembled local people agreed to be baptized.[4]

In Bonifacian iconography, the act is one of the most important symbols for the saint, and many prayer cards illustrate him with an axe, sometimes with his foot on the tree stump;[5] the scene as it was depicted, in all its pathos, by Willibald was a great example for historical paintings of the nineteenth century.[3]

Boniface used the wood of the oak to build a chapel dedicated to Saint Peter in Fritzlar. From this chapel originated a Benedictine monastery.[3] In 742 Boniface established the diocese of Büraburg,[6] with his disciple, Witta, as bishop. The first abbot of the monastery, St. Wigbert, built a stone basilica at the site of the wooden chapel which was, after its destruction by Saxons in 1079, replaced in 1180-1200 by the large Romanesque-Gothic cathedral of St. Peter that today dominates the town. The bishopric of Büraburg was abolished after Witta's death by Lullus and incorporated into that of Mainz.

An Irminsul (Old Saxon, probably "great/mighty pillar" or "arising pillar") was a kind of pillar which is attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon people. The oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.[1] The purpose of the Irminsuls and the implications thereof have been the subject of considerable scholarly discourse and speculation for hundreds of years.

A Germanic god Irmin, inferred from the name Irminsul and the tribal name Irminones, is sometimes presumed to have been the national god or demi-god of the Saxons.[2] It has been suggested that Irmin was more probably an aspect, avatar or epithet of some other deity – most likely Wodan (Odin). Irmin might also have been an epithet of the god Ziu (Tyr) in early Germanic times, only later transferred to Odin, as certain scholars ascribe to the idea that Odin replaced Tyr as the chief Germanic deity at the onset of the Migration Period. This was the favored view of early 20th century Nordicist writers[3], but it is not generally considered likely in modern times[4].

The Old Norse form of Irmin is Jörmunr, which just like Yggr was one of the names of Odin. Yggdrasil ("Yggr's horse") was the yew or ash tree from which Odin sacrificed himself, and which connected the nine worlds. Jakob Grimm connects the name Irmin with Old Norse terms like iörmungrund ("great ground", i.e. the Earth) or iörmungandr ("great snake", i.e. the Midgard serpent)[5].

It is thus often conjectured that the Irminsul was a World tree, the equivalent of Yggdrasil among the Saxon tribes of Germany. But the few primary sources that attest to it are not clear about whether it was a "world-pillar" or simply the pedestal for a cult image. In the Annales Pettaviani, it is even mentioned as ... locum, qui dicitur Ermensul ... ("... [a] place which they called Irminsul ...")[citation needed]. Likewise, it is unknown whether the Irminsul was made of wood or stone and whether there was one or several. Meanwhile, the "T"-shaped Irminsul representation most often seen today is entirely conjectural; contemporary sources always refer to it as a straightforward pillar or column.

The linguistic connection between Irmin- and iörmun/jörmun- is generally accepted, but the terms simply mean "great/mighty" or "rising high". It is easy to see how "The great one" or "The exalted one" could become a by-name of Odin, but unfortunately this is of little use to determine whether the Saxon term refers to a deity or simply means – as is usually preferred today – "great pillar" instead of "Irmin's pillar" or "Odin's pillar".

[edit] Attestations

[edit] Royal Frankish Annals

According to the Royal Frankish Annals (CE 772), during the Saxon wars, Charlemagne is repeatedly described as ordering the destruction of the chief seat of their religion, an Irminsul.[6] The Irminsul is described as not being far from Heresburg (now Obermarsberg), Germany.[6] Jacob Grimm states that "strong reasons" point to the actual location of the Irminsul as being approximately 15 miles (24 km) away, in the Teutoburg Forest and states that the original name for the region "Osning" may have meant "Holy Wood."[6]

[edit] De miraculis sancti Alexandri

The Benedictine monk Rudolf of Fulda (CE 865) provides a description of an Irminsul in chapter 3 of his Latin work De miraculis sancti Alexandri. Rudolf's description states that the Irminsul was a great wooden pillar erected and worshipped beneath the open sky and that its name, Irminsul, signifies universal all-sustaining pillar.[6]

[edit] Hildesheim

Under Louis the Pious in the 9th century, a stone column was dug up at Obermarsberg[7] in Westphalia, Germany and relocated to the Hildesheim cathedral in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany.[8] The column was reportedly then used as a candelabrum until at least the late 19th century.[8] In the 13th century, the destruction of the Irminsul by Charlemagne was recorded as having still been commemorated at Hildesheim on the Saturday after Laetare Sunday.[1]

The commemoration was reportedly done by planting two poles six feet high, each surmounted by a wooden object one foot in height shaped like a pyramid or a cone on the cathedral square.[1] The youth then used sticks and stones in an attempt to knock over the object.[1] This custom is described as existing elsewhere in Germany, particularly in Halberstadt where it was enacted on the day of Laetare Sunday by the Canons themselves.[1]

[edit] Kaiserchronik

Awareness of the significance of the concept seems to have persisted well into Christian times. For example, in the twelfth-century Kaiserchronik an Irminsul is mentioned in three instances:

It is notable that the overwhelming majority of Middle Ages sources understand the Irminsul as a pillar, not as a tree-like structure. In that they agree with older authors. In contrast to these, however, the object of worship or significance is understood to be placed on top of the Irminsul rather than being the pillar itself.

[edit] Theories

A number of theories surround the subject of the Irminsul.[edit] Germania

In Tacitus' Germania, the author mentions rumors of what he describes as "Pillars of Hercules" in land inhabited by the Frisii that had yet to be explored.[12] Tacitus adds that these pillars exist either because Hercules actually did go there or because the Romans have agreed to ascribe all marvels anywhere to Hercules' credit. Tacitus states that while Drusus Germanicus was daring in his campaigns against the Germanic tribes, he was unable to reach this region, and that subsequently no one had yet made the attempt.[13] Connections have been proposed between these "Pillars of Hercules" and later accounts of the Irminsuls.[1] Hercules was likely frequently identified with Thor by the Romans due to the practice of interpretatio romana.[14]

[edit] Externsteine relief and site

According to one particularly well-known suggestion, an Irminsul was situated at or near the Externsteine, a famous rock formation near Detmold, Germany. A Christian relief on the Externsteine (see photo above) depicts what has been described as a bent tree-like design at the feet of Nicodemus. This artwork, variously dated to the early ninth to early twelfth century AD, is popularly believed to represent the bent or fallen Irminsul beneath a triumphant Christianity.

While both the artwork and the Irminsul were known to scholars for centuries - Goethe for example discussed the relief in detail[15] -, they were not connected until the 1929 interpretation[16] of lay archaeologist Wilhelm Teudt.[17] In 1934 to 1935, the Ahnenerbe undertook extensive fieldwork in an attempt to uncover material evidence of the use of the Externsteine as a place of Germanic paganism worship, yet no such evidence was found.

Few modern scholars[18] consider it anything but an outright invention of Teudt, who did not provide evidence to back his claims.

Today it is generally accepted by historians that there is no historic attestation connecting the design in the Externsteine relief to the Irminsul. Certainly, the Eresburg was only about 45 kilometers (c.28 miles) from the Externsteine, and insofar there indeed was an Irminsul "near the Externsteine" but extensive archaeological studies of the Externsteine have failed to yield any material evidence for their use as a sacred site between Mesolithic and pre-Christian times. Thermoluminescence dating of firesites suggests that the site was occasionally used as a rock shelter in Saxon times, but apparently not to the extent one would expect from a major place of worship.[19][edit] Jupiter Columns

Comparisons have been made between the Irminsul and the Jupiter Columns that were erected along the Rhine in Germania around CE 2 and 3. Scholarly comparisons were once made between the Irminsul and the Jupiter Columns, however, Rudolf Simek states that the columns were of Gallo-Roman religious monuments, and that the reported location of the Irminsul in Eresburg does not fall within the area of the Jupiter Column archaeological finds.[20]

[edit] Neopaganism

A depiction of an Irminsul based on the Externsteine relief (shaped back into a vertical position) is used in some currents of Germanic Neopaganism.

"The destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne" (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann.FONTE IMMAGINE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zerst%C3%B6rung_der_Irminsaule_durch_Karl_den_Gro%C3%9Fen_by_Heinrich_Leutemann.jpg

The meaning of Læraðr / Léraðr is unclear. One of the meanings of læ is "harm", "betrayal". A possible translation of Læraðr could therefore be "arranger of betrayal", which would relate to Yggdrasill as the place of Odin's self-sacrifice.[1] Another reading is sometimes suggested, *hléradr, whose first component means "shelter" and which could thus be rendered into "giver of protection".[2]

[edit] Attestations

[edit] Poetic Edda

Læraðr is mentioned in two stanzas of the Grímnismál:

Heidrun the goat is called, that stands o’er Odin’s hall, and bits from Lærad’s branches. He a bowl shall fill with the bright mead; that drink shall never fail.

Eikthyrnir the hart is called, that stands o’er Odin’s hall, and bits from Lærad’s branches; from his horns fall drops into Hvergelmir, whence all waters rise:-

—Grímnismál (25, 26), Thorpe's translation[3]

[edit] Prose Edda

Under the name Léraðr, it also appears in Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning:

The she-goat, she who is called Heidrún, stands up in Valhall and bites the needles from the limb of that tree which is very famous, and is called [Léraðr]; and from her udders mead runs so copiously, that she fills a tun every day. [...] Even more worthy of note is the hart Eikthyrni, which stands in Valhall and bites from the limbs of the tree; and from his horns distils such abundant exudation that it comes down into Hvergelmir, and from thence fall those rivers called thus [...].

—Gylfaginning (39), Brodeur's translation[4]

[edit] Theories

According to John Lindow, the first reason to identify Lærad with Yggdrasill is "Lærad's location at Odin's hall, which would be at the center of the cosmos".[1] Another argument is that many animals dwell in or around Yggdrasill, such as an eagle, the squirrel Ratatoskr, four stags, many snakes and the dragon Níðhöggr. Snorri also wrote that Hvergelmir was located under Yggdrasill (Gylfaginning, 15, 16)

In Norse mythology, Mímameiðr (Old Norse "Mimi's tree"[1]) is a tree whose branches stretch over every land, is unharmed by fire or metal, bears fruit that assists pregnant women, and upon whose highest bough roosts the cock Víðópnir.

Mímameiðr is solely attested in the Poetic Edda poem Fjölsvinnsmál. Due to parallels between descriptions of the two, scholars theorize that Mímameiðr may be another name for the world tree Yggdrasil, and also Hoddmímis holt, a wood in within which Líf and Lífthrasir are foretold to take refuge during the events of Ragnarök.

Mímameiðr is sometimes modernly anglicized as Mimameid or Mimameith.[2]

Contents[hide]

* 1 Fjölsvinnsmál * 2 Theories * 3 Notes * 4 References

[edit] Fjölsvinnsmál

Mímameiðr is mentioned in stanzas of the Poetic Edda poem Fjölsvinnsmál, where the tree is described as having limbs that stretch over every land, bearing helpful fruit, and as harboring the cock Víðópnir. The first mention occurs when Svipdagr asks Fjölsviðr to tell him what the name of the tree whose branches reach over every land. Fjolsvith responds that:

Benjamin Thorpe translation:

Mimameidir it is called; but few men know from what roots it springs: it by that will fall which fewest know. Nore fire nor iron will harm it.[3]

Henry Adams Bellows translation:

"Mimameith its name, and no man knows What root beneath it runs; And few can guess what shall fell the tree, For fire nor iron shall fell it."[4]

This stanza is followed by another where Svipdagr asks Fjölsviðr what grows from the seed of the tree. Fjölsviðr responds that fruit grows from the tree:

Benjamin Thorpe translation:

Its fruit shall on the fire be laid, for labouring women; out then will pass what would in remain: so is it a creator of mankind."[3]

Henry Adams Bellows translation:

"Women, sick with child shall seek Its fruit to the flames to bear; Then out shall come what within was hid, And so is it mighty with men."[5]

In the notes to his translation of this stanza, Bellows comments this stanza is to be understood as explaining that, when cooked, the fruit of Mímameiðr—which he identifies as Yggdrasil—will assure safe childbirth.[5]

A third mention occurs when Svipdagr tells Fjölsviðr to tell him what the name of the glittering, golden cock is that sits "on the highest bough". Fjölsviðr complies, revealing that the cock is named Víðópnir:

Benjamin Thorpe translation:

"Vidofnir he is called; in the clear air he stands, in the boughs of Mima's tree: affliction only brings, together indissoluble, the swart bird at his lonely meal."[3]

Henry Adams Bellows translation:

"Vithofnir his name, and now he shines Like lightning on Mimameith's limbs; And great is the trouble with which he grieves Both Surt and Sinmora."[5]

[edit] Theories

Scholar Rudolf Simek connects Mímameiðr with Mímisbrunnr ("Mímir's well"), which is located beneath one of the three roots of the cosmological tree Yggdrasil. Simek concludes that due to the location of the well, Mímameiðr is potentially another name for Yggdrasil. In addition, Simek says that Hoddmímis holt ("Hoard-Mímir's" holt)—a wood whose name refers to the same figure and wherein Líf and Lífþrasir survive Ragnarök—may also be another name for Yggdrasil, and therefore is likely the same location as Mímameiðr.[6]

Scholar John Lindow concurs, noting that if the figures within the location names are the same, then the identification of all the locations as within close vicinity is likely.[7]